The 2010 BAFTA nominations have been announced, and three films boast a whopping eight nominations, with Avatar, An Education and The Hurt Locker leading the pack. Just behind is District 9 with seven, followed by Up In The Air and Inglourious Basterds with six.

It's a pretty wide spread for the Awards, which also see Coco Before Chanel, Precious: Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire, Nowhere Boy and Up get four nods each. We suspect that wide range will be reflected on the night with a relatively large number of films getting prizes, BAFTA clearly having listened to their collective mother and learned to share the wealth around.

Up for Best Film overall are Avatar (predictably), The Hurt Locker (also predictably, albeit for different reasons), Up In The Air, Precious and An Education. What's perhaps surprising is that only three of these films are also nominated for Best Director: Up In The Air's Jason Reitman and Precious' Lee Daniels lose out to District 9's Neil Blomkamp and Inglourious Basterds' Quentin Tarantino. Still, we're guessing it's still a James Cameron vs. Kathryn Bigelow race for that prize.

In terms of people who haven't been nominated at the Golden Globes or many of the US lists to date, it's nice to see In The Loop up for Outstanding British Film and Best Adapted Screenplay, Christian McKay up for Best Supporting Actor for his exceptional turn in Me And Orson Welles, Andy Serkis up for Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll and Duncan Jones nominated for Best British Film and the Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director Or Producer for Moon. That category's going to be tough, though: it also includes Sam Taylor-Wood for Nowhere Boy and Stuart Hazeldine for Exam.

Serkis and McKay aside, the male acting categories go largely as you'd expect, with nods for George Clooney in Up In The Air, Golden Globe winner Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart and Colin Firth for A Single Man. The one welcome surprise there is that someone has finally acknowledged that Jeremy Renner's rather good in The Hurt Locker. In the Supporting category, The Lovely Bones' Stanley Tucci and Inglourious Basterds' Christoph Waltz are nominated alongside Alfred Molina for An Education and Alec Baldwin for It's Complicated (that film's sole nomination here).

For the ladies, by-now expected contenders Carey Mulligan (An Education), Meryl Streep (Julie and Julia) and Gabourey Sidibe (Precious) are joined by Audrey Tautou for Coco Before Chanel and Saoirse Ronan for The Lovely Bones. The Supporting category nominates two actresses from Up In The Air - Anna Kendrick and Vera Farmiga - and two from Nowhere Boy - Kristin Scott-Thomas and Anne-Marie Duff - but surely none of those can beat Mo'Nique for Precious.

The Animated ghetto category has only three nominees, but they're all great films: Fantastic Mr Fox, Coraline and Up (which is also up for Best Screenplay, Sound and Score). Films Not In The English Language is another strong group, with no clear winner: the buzzed-about Cannes winner A Prophet is up against Coco Before Chanel (which BAFTA clearly loves), Let The Right One In (which everyone else loves), Almodovar's Broken Embraces and Haneke's The White Ribbon.

The full list of nominees is below; the ceremony will take place and the results announced on February 21.

BEST FILMAvatarAn EducationThe Hurt LockerPrecious: Based on the novel Push by SapphireUp In The Air

There was no doubt that Sharlto was an amazing actor (in my opinion)
He made most of his lines up, not many actors do that in our days...
He deserves a title. But lucky enough they've been nominated a couple of times, let's hope they'll win ONE or at least TWO awards. Best of luck to Neill Blomkamp! More

While I was happy overall with the nominations selection, I found myself let down by the fact that the film, NIne, didn't get its recognition in the acting categories. Although not up there with the big contenders for Best Film, I felt that both Daniel Day-Lewis and especially Marion Cotillard should've been in the mix for their performances!!!! Ah well....
That pretty much remains my only query as I was mostly satisfied. More

Nice to see some recognition for District 9 at last. 7 well-deserved nominations, including Director, Cinematography, and Adapted* Screenplay. But not Best Picture? This seems a bit perverse.
Also good to see a couple of nods for Moon - Best British Film, and Outstanding Debut.
But why no Rockwell and Copley nominations for Best Actor? Easily the two outstanding performances of the past 12 months.
ptedplay? Adapted from what? Alive in Joburg? Sure More

Went to see Avatar again last night and she's truely brilliant in it. It's still her acting to create the cgi character. And it's got nothing to do with finding the blue cat lady attractive. Erhem... More

What happened to Bright Star? I surely thought BAFTA would acknowledge Abbie Cornish for her performance.... Even though Avatar is innovative and all of that, it doesnt compare to Birght Star, not in the slightest. Jane Campion's best work since The Piano, and no recognition.... personally, i think Saorise Ronan has taken Abbie's place - she was nowhere near as good. Also, i debate An Education over Inglorious Basterds in the Best Film Catagory..... but i suppose its not going to happen at the o More

It's so good to see such a broad range of films competing in the respective categories. It's much more indicative a line-up of the entire year's film releases than the Globes, and shows that the voting panel clearly have individual tastes. Well done us British folk for having a little - and seemingly almost forgotten - thing called taste. More

Where in the blue hell have all of the nominations for The Road gone. One category! In the words of Will Ferrell, "I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here." Why has Viggo been snubbed by the film industry. It's the best performance, I've seen this year. Admittedly I've not seen Bridges or Firth. However, to leave the top five completely free of him is a travesty. The film itself is also far superior to Avatar and Inglourious Basterds. Avatar winning at the Globes was a catastro More

jeremy renner should win the oscar
in my opinion jeff bridges is brilliant but just like sean penn in MYSTIC RIVER and paul newman in THE COLOR OF MONEY and al pacino in SCENT OF A WOMAN an amazing actor who never won when he should have think about it scarecrow the hustler dead man walking the fabulous baker boys all fearless performances disturbing characters they didnt win now they want to give it to jeff too little too late crazy heart is ju More

It always amazes me that Clint Mansell doesn't get any nods at award season. He's by far and away one of the best composers around, and his work on Moon was incredible. For me that film had three fantastic ingredients - Great direction from Zowie, a stellar (no pun intended) performance by Rockwell (as always - he should've got a nomination as well), and Mansell's haunting, compelling, mesmorising score. More Clint love, please! More

great to see jeremy renner getting a nomination, he was fantastic, but sharlto copely is again being overlooked. It's annoying as well, because i wouldn't want to replace any of the best actor nominations, maybe serkis, just for the fact that i haven't actually seen his movie.
i know he's not going to win, but i wish neill blomkamp luck, he deserves it. a much better sci-fi film than avatar on less than %10 of it's budget More

What the hell is The Hangover doing in there?
Disappointed that Harry Potter couldn't muster a cinematography nomination. Again. :(
Why is Avatar up for all these? Technical awards, yes. Best Film? Eh?? Who else thought that the story was distinctly average?
More

Where are the nominations for two of the most exciting Brit actors of their generation? Tom Hardy who was unbelievable in Bronson (and more or less anything he does) and Ben Wishaw for Bright Star? Too much lip service to Hollywood. I thought these were British film awards? More

BEST FILM
The Hurt Locker
OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM
An Education
OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER
DUNCAN JONES Director – Moon
DIRECTOR
Kathryn Bigelow - The Hurt Locker
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Bob Peterson, Pete Docter - Up
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche - In The Loop
FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Let The Right One In
ANIMATED FILM
Up
LEADING ACTOR
Colin Firth - A Single Man
LEA More

Well, Moon, In The Loop, finally, but they were pre-meditated, nice to see Hazeldine get a nod too. Nothing out of the ordinary, bland as hell, like a certain CGI flick that is nominated in production design AND best film, taking Basterds' rightly earned place... More